On the website for Petland Kennesaw in Georgia, an unusual looking puppy is for sale - a Boston terrier with stark white fur and blue-pink eyes. When reached by phone at the store, the salesperson "Alex" said that the dog is albino, which is "something very, very rare to find."

An anonymous customer who spoke with The Dodo after visiting the Kennesaw store learned from the store (after asking to see the dog's paperwork) that the puppy came from a company called Choice Puppies, a distributor in Missouri that's part of Hunte Corporation. This customer took photos of the paperwork, confirming where this puppy came from - and showing a $5,500 price tag.

The paperwork for the albino Boston terrier for sale at Petland |
Shut down Petland in Kennesaw, Ga

As John Goodwin, the senior director of the Stop Puppy Mills Campaign at the Humane Society, explains, Hunte Corporation is a broker who buys dogs from puppy mills and sells them to pet stores. "It's very convenient," Goodwin tells The Dodo. "When a consumer Googles 'Choice Puppies,' they don't find the same awful things as when they Google 'Hunte.'" (When you do Google "Hunte Corporation," you find page after page of information about their puppy mill history and cruelty towards animals. For instance, one page provides a link to an investigative video that shows dogs with matted, yellow-stained fur in tiny wire cages.)

An operations manager reached at Petland's headquarters confirmed that Petland works with Choice Puppies, although he was unable to say exactly where the white puppy came from. He told The Dodo that Petland does not associate with any puppy mills, saying, "We got all USDA reports on all the breeders that the stores use." In fact, being licensed by the USDA means nothing - puppy mills must be licensed in order to sell dogs to stores. USDA standards require only that dogs' cages be 6 inches longer than the dog, and allow puppy mills to keep dogs in those tiny cages, stacked on top of each other, their entire lives.

Dogs who come from puppy mills often end up having health issues like giardia, distemper, parvovirus, respiratory infections and intestinal parasites, Gina Moraz, manager of the ASPCA Puppy Mills campaign, explained to The Dodo. The mother dogs are forced to give birth to litter after litter, only to have their puppies taken away from them shortly after birth. When the mothers can no longer produce, they're usually deposed of or euthanized.

Some people online have also expressed concern that this particular terrier has another health issue - splayed feet.

When you consider all this puppy and his family have been through, this puppy shouldn't be sold at all - he should be adopted by a loving family.

"Puppy mills often fail to screen breeding dogs for hereditary disorders and this results in generations of dogs with defects that can lead to painful lives and sometimes even early deaths," Goodwin says. "This is a problem that afflicts many breeds, not just Boston terriers. The fact is that most of the puppies sold in pet stores, or over the internet sight unseen, come from puppy mills, and it is quite clear that puppy mills are more interested in pumping out as many puppies as possible with little regard for the love and care that the dogs need."

For the moment, the albino puppy remains for sale on Petland's website. If you'd like to help dogs like him, don't buy him. Instead you can sign this petition or sign this pledge to adopt your next pet from a shelter.

To learn more about Petland's association with puppy mills, read The Dodo's investigation here.